The absurdity of Wenger: The man who could have had it all

Been having a lot of thoughts about what the hell to do we Le Grove moving forward. I’ve been knocking out a daily digest with friends and fam for 10 years. Is that still what Arsenal fans want? Do you want less content but more pointed like newspaper journalism. Do you want podcasts? Videos? More guest bloggers? Would be cool to pick your brains. Heading into year ten and I have an itch to try something new. I’ve become all the things I bitch about in Arsene Wenger. So thoughts below would be welcome, BUT I’VE WRITTEN 50,000 BLOGS SO KEEP THOSE OPINIONS POLITE YOU HANDBRAKE MUGS.

One thing I am enjoying out in the new world of football blogging is the out and out geekery of some of the new tactical blogs. A lot of it baffles me, but I love the science behind the game, how data and constant innovation is changing the face of the football at a pace not seen before.

The blog I shared yesterday was a prime example of this. What did amuse, was after sharing it out, a few people asked if the person writing it was a professional manager, because the logic of the piece couldn’t be authenticated unless the person writing played for United and managed Barnsley.

That’s the beauty of the internet. You can study the game, have access to theories, videos and people that can fuel your thoughts. I’m a passionate lurker on those sites, but I do find them especially depressing because whilst Wenger perked us all up by purchasing a regista to dictate play, he shit his pants in a hot tent when he told the world he saw his fairly immobile new signing as more of a box to box player.

Wenger went to a Soho sex shop, bought a pink dildo and gifted it to his new lady friend as an elite vibrating meat tenderiser. Unreal. While we have a manager struggling to work out what exactly he wants from a midfielder, completely unaware of how to match skillset to a position, managers like Sarri at Napoli and Sampiola are working with mobile registas to a combat a problem we don’t even have yet because we’re still flouncing around with a traditional number ten who doesn’t contribute defensively.

On this point, it’s depressing that even our fans don’t see the wood for the trees on Xhaka, complaining he’s an overhyped uninspired signing. How is he supposed to impress when he’s effectively being dumped in midfield and asked to do the job of three players? How can you shine as an architect when you’re handed a lollipop, a flouro jacket and asked to stand on the main road minding the kids?

It still feels completely odd to say it, but isn’t it staggering our manager is one of the worst strategists of the top coaches? A man who preached the future, can’t manage the present, let alone form a coherent vision and a path to take his club to the promised land. Zero thought beyond position goes into the players we sign.

Wenger has the most basic view of what he wants.

Pretty football

4-2-3-1

Press from the front, ‘if you like’

Then we roll from there. He doesn’t consider what each player does. If you’re a midfielder, your job is to press. Defend and attack. Add goals to your game at some point. He doesn’t consider your physiology, your preferred position, what he exactly wants from you.

You can look at me like I’m being mean here… but Jack Wilshere wanted the be a deep-lying playmaker, was told he was a 10, then was duly fucked off to the coast for a full season by accident because we didn’t know the rules.

Xhaka is amongst the top 3 deep-lying playmakers in the league, Wenger genuinely thought he was a B2B. Aaron Ramsey is a perfect foil to Xhaka, yet he’s spent time on the right of midfield and had an ill-fated game as a fucking #10, has also played like no one has ever given him an instruction or a dry slap in his life. Ozil is allowed to play at 10, regardless of performance, for as many games as he wants despite clear fitness issues. Coquelin continues to pick up game time despite being embarrassingly ineffective moving the ball forward, almost afforded possession against certain teams because they know he can’t be trusted (an issue Madrid nipped in the bud with Makelele, what, 10 years ago?).

Our midfield is an unstructured shambles that gets away with it because at the core, the players are very good. But we have means now where being very good is not moving the club forward. It’s holding us back. Our commercials are stagnant. Our fanbase is bored. The only two people winning are Arsene and Stan. The owner not realizing yet that winning things might make his return a bit more valuable.

Imagine a system where the players knew what they were supposed to be doing? Imagine a world where Wenger, who clearly wanted a box to box runner actually bought Kante instead of Xhaka. Imagine if he went balls out and bought both players? Imagine we built a system to suit the modern era and the strengths of the players we currently have?

… and here’s the real fucking killer for me. Wenger could have it all. If he’d gone out and signed an assistant like Thomas Tuchel before he blew up or David Wagner… and empowered one of them… do you think we’d have these issues? No way. We’d have someone who could fill in the massive blanks Wenger has to the modern game. Wenger could have and rightfully should have taken all the credit for the revolution taking Arsenal to new levels.

If he’d done something like that, rather than spending his time building impenetrable power structures to protect his pay packet and longevity, he’d have won at least 2 league titles and possibly a Champions League. Instead, he sold us on a ‘can’t do’ mentality, shifted perceptions of what success looked like and used class as a substitute for ambition.

Wenger’s own arrogance, selfishness and desperate panic about retiring will see him melt out of the club, rather than roar out like Alex Ferguson.

What a shame. What a real damn shame.

See you in the comments!

381 Responses to “The absurdity of Wenger: The man who could have had it all”

He won though in democratic elections in a system your nation has always used and I doubt any fuss would have been made if Clinton had won.

We had the same thing over here after the Tories got in from the butthurt left, ‘the voting system is wrong.’

It just stands connected to the society the left has created, ‘it is not my fault, I’m a sunflower, it is someone else’s fault.’

If you let the left decide the system would be changed every election after the result had come in to ensure the left candidate won, thoroughly democratic.

Hilariously though, after our last election, I think UKIP ended up with something like 13% of the vote, or a large portion anyway, yet got two seats or something, the SNP got a minuscule portion of the vote and ended up with 52 because of our system, so all the lefties crying would probably have ended up with a Commons dominated by Conservatives and UKIP. But then of course that system would have been wrong, and so we’d have started the ‘left wing votes count for three’ system.

No, the system has been antiquated for some time, as they haven’t maintained the ratios set out in the Constitution. Look it up. Yes, the Trump victory has given people reason to talk about it, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t long been so.

And it has been undemocratic from the outset. About that there is no question.

Let us not categorize Clinton. She is a chameleon who changes her color as per her need. But yes as a democrat, she at least on paper represents liberals. I know what are you getting at though. In fact on economic policies DJT is more left than Clinton but you get my drift.

Listen all, I gladly concede that people didn’t care all that much in prior elections about the fact that the EC is both antiquated and undemocratic and that the Trump win has given them reason to talk about this. But this doesn’t change the fact that 3 million more Americans voted for Clinton than voted for Trump, so whoever above said Trump won a majority in a democratic election was factually incorrect. He did not.

Yeah he did, quite right. And was mocked for it, though he said that the game had been rigged against him owing most of the political establishment and media overwhelming not wanting him to get in. People laughed about it.

After Wisconsin went, I think it was, forgive me Americans if I’m getting that wrong as a lowly British person, they all started saying the same thing! The system is wrong, the system is broken, we should demand a fresh election etc

I do think though, after Labour got in numerous times here, I cannot speak for the US, but you did not get the hordes of butthurt (usually student) lefties complaining about the system as we did after the Conservatives got in and after Brexit. Why is that?

Well, it is like a guy on one of your news station said when someone said we live in a democracy and Clinton got the majority vote, his reply is, we don’t, we live in a Constitutional Republic, which I guess sums it up?

I wouldn’t say he is more “left”; he’s more protectionist. But these are not at all one and the same thing.

Trump made an appeal to the American working class — a bogus and phony appeal, mind you — on the basis of nationalism and protectionism. These policies are doomed to fail — indeed to bring about trade war and real war — just as they did in the 1930s.

Along with the above, Trump will be massively cutting taxes for the wealthy and for big business. He is a right-wing billionaire representative of the American top 1%, and nothing about his program is “left” or “progressive”.

The American working class will see through him soon enough, and then things will get really interesting. 😉

Again, I agree that the only reason many are talking about the outmoded and undemocratic system is because Clinton lost. However, this doesn’t change the fact that it is both outmoded and undemocratic.

CA, obviously the World has become a much better place due to the fight against inequality be it race, gender, preferences etc. The problem comes when they start overdoing it, there’s a thin line between fighting for the oppressed and becoming an oppressor yourself.

I mean, we’ve come to a point where anyone who doesn’t tow political correctness is immediately attacked and humiliated. Majority of people just want to live in peace, minding their own business. Nobody appreciates being told what to say, being told how to live…probably why we are seeing such strong backlash against the establishment all over the World.

I blame the politicians, they ruined it like they ruin so many other things. The fight against inequality and injustice was done for the good of humanity, but ofcourse the grubby politicians saw the scope for unparalleled fame and support in it, jumped on the bandwagon and have made a mockery of it.

There is a fundamental difference between Schneiderlein and the players I listed. His contract expires in June 2019.

Those I listed were under contract until June 2018. Once a player reaches the last 12 months of his contract it is he and his agent who are in driving seat.

Van Persie made it crystal clear that he would not sign a new contract and forced Arsenal to sell him to Man Utd. That could be the situation with many
of the players I listed. Arsenal’s options in the summer could be very limited.

Yeah, that is fine, just annoying when you hear it in the aftermath of a result that a certain group don’t like, almost like saying ‘well we would have won the match if it was eighty minutes long, I’ve been saying ninety minutes is too long for years,’ not saying you yourself are doing that because I have no idea what your feelings have been on the voting system, but there’s a many millions out there on the ‘losing’ side, if you want to put it that way who are just looking for a way to say ‘I didn’t lose, I’m not wrong, the majority don’t disagree with me, the system is wrong and anyway, most of that majority did it because they are racist.’

More gold from Mustafi:
– ESPNFC is not a credible source on football (because it’s American)
– a former Venezuelan professional isn’t a credible football pundit because he is Venezuelan and Mustafi doesn’t think much of Venezuelan football
– American commenters who have a lot to say here have “too much to say” — because they are American

Mustafi is one of these guys who is stuck in 1985; he hasn’t adjusted and he refuses to adjust to our new, more globalized world.

I do not mean to be rude to you Mr Wood, but you have written 3652 or 3653 if you have done one blog a day, depending on whether there have been two or three leap years since you started.

Also, your right to courteous replies is directly proportional not to the number of blogs you have posted, rather the levels of vituperative insults, cold calculated racism (attacking people from regions of a country is racist, even if your PC viewpoint says you are only racist if you attack blacks, India, you are only sexist if you attack women, gays and transgender and you only commit crimes if you attack Jews or Muslims), not to mention the number of times you plagiarise from the comments whilst trashing the original source.

As you are no doubt aware, I have communicated my absolute intolerance of certain of your utterances to Ivan Gazidis, making it quite clear to him the incompatibility of those remarks with the values of Arsenal FC, any FC and anyone worthy of any position of responsibility in society. So do not play the sweet young innocent with me. You write what you write away from the emotional atmosphere of a game and therefore no defence concerning thoughtlessness is available to you.

As for more recent events you demonstrated your complete contempt for the rule of law throughout the Ched Evans trials, something I am amazed your US employers have not picked on, given the most honourable attempts to reintegrate Mr Evans after completion of sentence were initiated by US owners in the U.K. I am of the opinion that it is you who should lose the right to work over your comments, since if you will not respect the rule of law, you cannot participate in societies which do.

My advice to you Mr Wood: do not comment when your prejudiced, immature, ill-informed views contravene the basic rules of society. You are not fit to influence the wider world through msrketing without such maturity.

As for the football part of your blog, it has its ups and downs, like all blogs. You have to balance those readers of five years standing against new ones. Do you want it to grow old with your current readers or remain young?

Do you have the sources to provide deep insight or the signposting ability to bring interesting material to others attention?

Do you want to retain the disrespectful in your face gobbiness that currently exists, psrticularly with the losing pathetic attitude toward strong rivals? It is a market niche to be sure. Does it add any value?

Do you know if the blog is read by the squad? If so, do they better or worse as a result of reading it? Is the club run better as a result of things written here?

There is no blog out there that I or anyone else will agree with all the time. The real question in my mind is whether hatred of Tottenham is a useful emotion or not. I must say I do not find it so and most Spurs fans I have talked to are not worthy of hatred, contempt or derision. They are humans like me.

I hated Man Utd fans who put a fist through my face in Manchester, at just the time the city was trying to tout itself as a global place and when London was choc a bloc full of Utd fans, but I respected old Red Nose because he was a magnificent manager. I channeled my hatred into ensuring that the bar owner who condoned the violence lost his license to trade and when I took my cousins son, then studying in Manchester to watch another Arsenal defeat at OT, I was gratified to see that my wish had been granted.

I find some of the immaturity here very tiring, but people are at where they are at in life. From a sociological point of view, the potential for fertile study of emotional meltdown should Spurs ever win the EPL is almost worth selling as an asset! Given what has been on display the past five years, one hesitates to surmise that the responses would go much further than FUCK OFF WENGER YER FRENCH CUNT!! You never know, it might extend to IVAN, IVAN SACK THE CUNT! IVAN!! IVAN!!

All I would say Mr Wood is this, if you want a really really good doing over, write some more racist rubbish about the Welsh……

Yes, we will see. Although unlike you I would not underestimate him. Nobody gave him a chance yet he beat the establishment, the media and even his fellow Republicans to become US President elect. So, don’t write him off.

Int he 60’s, 70’s and even 80’s race campaigners and feminist actually campaigned for something meaningful, changing things in society that were just plain wrong and did great work.

Nowadays, not saying there are not still race issues and gender issues in society, but they are nowhere near as prevalent, not even close to the way they were when those people were campaigning, to the point now you get students championing ridiculous issues like ‘safe spaces’ and helplines for women who are victims of ‘mansplianing.’

And as you say, political correctness has gone utterly mad, and these two votes are rejections of that, when you add a qualifier to ‘correct’ in that way by putting ‘politically’ in front of it you are essentially canging the meaning of correct, which is scary.

Well yeah, you are correct as in factually, statistically, logically accurate, but you are not politically correct.

Basically, political correctness, Western guilt etc has given a platform to morons over the last two decades who have undone so much of the really good work certain elements on the left have done and try to do still because they get associated with the angry modern feminism full of misandry, or the young race campaigners who just riot and destroy and look for an opportunity to wreak havoc.

Can I suggest that the way Trump went about winning the election was very clever, he campaigned heavily in swing states and places that he has a change of winning via the EC system. He played that game knowing he was never going to win the popular vote.

He was never going to make a dent in either NY or Cali so that is a huge chunk of the popular vote that he never even tried to bring to his side.

In my opinion, the EC system is extremely flawed but you can guarantee we would not be hearing a word about it if Clinton had won. Would like to see how they handle proportional representation like it is done here, not well I would imagine.

How incompetent does one person have to be to lose an election to Donald Trump, considering nearly all the cards were stacked in her favour..

He certainly is Pires 7, but I’ve often thought the pro-Wenger posters who take a slightly more reasonable tone will adopt another moniker and come back on and just let fly with what they really wanted to say whilst maintaining the credibility of their other persona.

“He certainly is Pires 7, but I’ve often thought the pro-Wenger posters who take a slightly more reasonable tone will adopt another moniker and come back on and just let fly with what they really wanted to say whilst maintaining the credibility of their other persona.”

this is true, I’m also actually ‘Joe’. not banned, just retired him for a while. waiting for the real meltdown in March when I can really bring it.

Again, I do not have the same views — “racism!””sexism!” — as the annoying and misguided type of liberal you highlight above. Not at all. Indeed, these people drive me crazy and I argue with them constantly.

My point is only the relatively straightforward one I have made several times above.

I have to say that during my time in Uni one thing I noticed about the growing 3rd wave feminist movement was that a lot of the people on the front line of the movement were nothing short of bullies.

These were people who were bullied in secondary school (high school) and when they arrived on campus in Uni noticed that there were no more bullies around so they decided to take it on themselves to exact some form revenge by trying to control what people could say, think or do on campus.

Such a situation was the call for ALL first year students to have to take mandatory consent classes on their first week of Uni because apparently there was a r@pe epidemic on campus.. So just before the last Christmas break a girl was actually sexually assaulted on campus and this made the news country wide, it was huge news. Now everyone on our campus were being told that 1 in 8 female students would be r@ped during their time at the Uni… but if that was the case why did this one incident shock and disgust people to the point that it made national news? Wouldn’t it be common place if 1 in 8 would experience it?!

What was going on was a campaign of fear mongering by a same group of people so that they could feel a sense of power and importance at the expense of the people they claim to represent.

Those people are the most aggravating, the most anti-democratic, anti-rights, anti-freedom of speech you can find, every single person is entitled to their political beliefs, that is the beauty of living in countries like the US and the UK and we are so lucky that we do, and as you, most of the time perfectly sensible debate and discussion can be had, but as with most things, it gets hijacked by the very vocal, very intolerant, usually young, left, who think they are being edgy and revelatory in essentially forwarding and ill conceived, lazy, aggressive version of what real rights campaigners were arguing in the 60’s and 70’s.

Yeah, a lot of public voices have condemned the feminist claims of campus r.ape culture as scaremongering and whipping up a frenzy in which their angry message can thrive.

I agree with you, I’m in the middle of a Masters right now, and you still see it at university, plenty of women who associate as feminists and will talk about the pay gap and patriarchy etc but they have not bothered at all to read into the statistics and actually information out there, they regard feminist claims as axiomatic basically and ignore social studies and societal statistics which shed light on the different choices men and women make etc.

I’m a big proponent of equality and rights, my Masters is actually in Public Law and International Human Rights Law, so, you know, hardly a raving right wing loon here, but that means total respect for beliefs, total respect for choice, respect for diversity in culture and opinion. If a women, for example, decides that she would like a healthy balance between work and family life, as most social studies show us they do, then as long as she is happy and that is her choice, I’m am all for enabling her to do that, who am I to tell her she is wrong? But I will tell you who will tell her she is wrong, a modern feminist, a feminist who believes in women’s rights, telling a woman she has the right to choose and do anything, unless she chooses wrong in their eyes.

Entitled to your political beliefs if it tows the national line. It’s fine for EDL and other right wing groups to peddle hate, but if a Muslim does it he finds himself on a vacation in a nice orange jump suit. Personally they’re all cunts just pointing out that this country plays dirty like many many others. Some worse some better but still nowhere near perfect like people like to make out.

In terms of selection, I will keep forwarding this idea of a new midfield set up with three players, but that won’t happen, so it will be the same tired 4-2-3-1, Ozil will come back in, Iwobi will be wide, I would guess Giroud will be ST and Xhaka and Coq will be deep.

“It’s fine for EDL and other right wing groups to peddle hate, but if a Muslim does it he finds himself on a vacation in a nice orange jump suit”

Yet to see the EDL shoot 50 people on a beach, drive a truck into crowds killing 84 people, shoot 50 people in a nightclub, shoot people for drawing cartoons, blow up airports, shoot over 100 hundred people in a theatre.

I agree with you. Whilst all clubs make mistakes this is usually rectified pretty early eg bebe at United,Diao at Southampton. Unlike Arsenal where it takes shit player between 75 – 100 games or 3-4 seasons before realising they’re shit and releasing them

But, as we’ve just established, the ‘national line’ has been broken by the last couple of big votes, the national line is one of political correctness and globalisation that seems to run contrary to your next point about the EDL and Muslims.

The EDL is a joke in this country, and part of the problem is people trying to elevate the EDL or the like into the conversation to try and taint the current debate with overtures of racism when really, people were just sick of political correctness, sick of globalisation, sick of the political class, sick of mass migration and sick of being lectured to by champagne socialist and the political elite who don’t have to suffer the consequences of what they are preaching.

As I said Gambon they’re all cunts. Just pointing out this country isn’t as perfect as some make out. This country has been responsible for many innocent deaths, civilian and their own squaddies on false pretences while our lying bullshitting leaders rake it in.

Would very much prefer Schneiderlin in our starting 11 than many of the options we have available at the moment. But Wenger is too busy bringing in Non-league 20 year olds… as Sonogo was such a hit, why not…

I would still have taken Schniederlin, I think he is such a tidy player.

I don’t mind us taking punts on people like this Brammal for £40 000, could be a great scout, might be a dud, does not really matter, provided of course, we don’t hear about him being an answer as to why we don’t need to replace Monreal if he’s still untested by that point.

But then again, the overarching point, is we don’t Wenger still around making those excuses by then.

Quite frankly don’t give a fuck as it’s all bollocks anyway. Anyone comes into my home and threatens my family I will defend them to the death. But fight for country of my birth or my parents country…..nah….like fuck. I’m out for myself and my family as selfish as that may seem. Actually that’s a lie as the only time I will suggest using violence is if they give le arsehole another 2 years. Then I’d gladly draw a pic of Muhammed taking it up the shitter from jesus ,hide it in wenger’s desk before informing the local Muslim extremist of said picture and informing him that wenger reckons Muslims are all gay because they were dresses. 😀

Corruption is what plagues the modern society. Heartens me to see the Indian Government taking a strong stance against it and actually back it up with new policies and formulations. A refreshing change from the empty words and bogus promises that is the shtick of most politicians.

I’m joking but the way but not in my hatred for wenger. I truly despise everything the man stands for. Whilst I agree with most of what Gambon says, I don’t agree that we’re completely shit player wise. I think we have a fairly decent squad with a couple additions here a tweak there and we wouldn’t be far off the title with a better manager. Some of our players look worse BECAUSE of wenger. Look at Schmeichel in his last year at United, he was still a good keeper. Went to villa and was conceding goals left right and centre. Why? Because the defense in front of him no longer afforded him the same protection. Same with Seaman in his season at city. With a better coach, better training, better tactics some of out players would be 100% improved. Especially knowing they could no longer coast.

A little late to the party but haha – Vicky, you’re clueless, man. Trump more left than Clinton?

I wonder. Would you guys be championing for respecting the American election results had Clinton won? Where were you when Republicans challenged Obama every single step of the way during his 8 year run? Were you outraged when Trump said he would not accept the results just two, three weeks before the elections? So much interest in American politics.